Do you ever have those moments when you feel so utterly overwhelmed by what you want God to change in you that your mind doesn’t want to think anymore?
I know I have. My list runs a mile long. I start to create a challenge to get a little head start and then I find myself facing the actual thing God wants me to face. He’s funny like that. He lets me pretend I am in control of my own life so He can stop me in my tracks and remind me of why I am not. Because I never really get anywhere when I am challenging myself. It only works when the challenges are from Him.
So here I am. I’m in Mozambique. The clock shows that its just past mid-night and I have just finished watching my 8th Glee episode of the day. Or maybe it’s my 9th. I kind of lost count. I am supposed to be resting up because tomorrow morning at 5:30 my day-off ends and my mission week officially begins. So why am I still awake? Really? I wanted to write a blog, but I should be sleeping.
The problem is that I am restless.
I have this thing I do when I want to avoid staring the obvious issues right in the face. I make myself mindlessly busy. Usually I read books, watch movies or in this case (and maybe a few other cases in the past…) I watch endless episodes of Glee. What’s my deal?
I am searching for my heart. For some of you, maybe even most, you know right where to find it. You have a family, a career, a hobby and like most of my teammates, you have passions for real issues in the world. And me? I don’t know just yet.
I have to ask myself why it is that I didn’t cry when I left the precious Filipino orphanage we stayed at back in September. Or why it didn’t upset me more when I left without saying goodbye to the kids we spent almost every day with in South Africa. Or why I am more concerned about being freaked out when I see people dying in Swaziland because of AIDS for my own sake rather than theirs. Why is my heart not broken?
And then it hit me. I am not sure I can explain it in words but I want to try.
My whole life I have been presented with chances to care. I have been in the world and seen hungry people. I have held babies that have no family. I have brushed shoulders with people who live their life on the street.
And I have felt no emotion. Because it is easy for me to pretend like its not real. It has become like reading a story in a book or watching a plot unfold in a TV show. It is all my perception. It is easy to make these things seem unreal, like fiction. But the problem is, it IS real.
If it is one thing that the World Race has done for me, it is to show me that real life happens in all different situations. You don’t have to go outside of your everyday life to see a broken world. It is around every corner. In every neighborhood. In every person. We are broken because we are human. And as humans, we are imperfect. Really, incomplete without Christ.
I thought the World Race would put me in positions to force me to think outside of myself. The reality is no one can make you see outside of you. Only YOU can make that decision for yourself. Only I can make that decision for me.
It comes down to allowing what you see to connect to your heart. Being unafraid of sorting through reality. Not allowing reality to be tainted by your perception of life. Allowing your perception of life to ultimately be challenged by God.
My challenge is to live in reality. To put down my stories, turn off my shows and recognize that I am not imagining the devastation around me. And I can actually do something about it. Not just by physically putting my hands to work but allowing my heart to be broken over it in the process.
